I don't know about the spotting scopes, but I really like my Alpen binoculars. I bought mine used on ebay. They showed up without the neck strap. I emailed them asking if I could buy one. They said that they would send me one for free. They are low-end but I've been very happy with them. Decent glass and a great price.

I looked at one at a recent gun show here in W. Wa. I was not able to step outside with the scope and do a field test with it. So I found a heater unit mounted on the other side of the autotorium zoomed in on it and read the fine print on it. My thought was to judge the detail of the color transistions for the lettering and the scope seemed reasonable. But I will be honest, I had my doubts about it's ability to judge a mule deer at 2 miles, so I passd on it.
Yesterday evening I found a pentax PF63 spotting scope with a 20-50X zoom eye piece for $260 on amazon.com of all places. It was a straight body unit. For the price I went ahead and took a chance. I will report back once I have a chance to give it a field test.

THanks for your input,
Got a chance to try the scope outside across a 1/4 section and the definition seemed crisp to me. so i ordered the scope and camera mount. Cant wait to try it out and I'll let you all now how it turns out